European Markets Fall As Investors Assess Risk From US Election Drama

Frankfurt (Oct 31)  European stock markets opened lower Monday, following similar weakness in Asia, as investors continued to digest the political risk arising from last week's decision by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to re-open its probe into Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server.

The broadest measure of European shares, the Stoxx 600 index, slipped around 0.33% in the morning sessions, led to the downside by oil and energy stocks that fell in concert with global crude prices. London's FTSE 100 index also started trading for the week in the red, falling 0.4% to around 6,968 points in morning trading.

One of the session's biggest movers in opening trade was WPP plc  (WPPGY) as shares rose more than 4% after traders shrugged off a reported slowdown in like-for-like third quarter sales and focused on the fact that the world's biggest advertising group indicated that a weaker pound will likely boost revenue growth in the months ahead.

The group said revenue in the three months ending in September grew 23.4% to £3.611 billion ($4.4 billion) and forecast that full-year like-for-like revenues would grow "over" 3%. So-called organic sales, however, slowed to 3.2% from 4.3% in the first six months of the year, it said. Operating margins for the first nine months of the year, the group said,expanded by 0.3 basis points in constant currency terms.

=Shares in the group were quoted at 1,767 pence each, a gain of 3.5% from Friday's close, by mid-morning in London.

Source: TheStreet